India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has introduced updated defence procurement measures that are focused on accelerating acquisition processes and providing greater flexibility to vendors, whilst ensuring greater transparency in the procurement process.
The DPP 2008 is an update of the 2006 DPP and its importance, according to Defence Minister Shri AK Antony is that it will align India with the rapid modernisation and restructuring of armed forces that is being carried out worldwide.
“We want a highly modern armed force, which will be able to respond quickly and meet any challenges,” said Antony.
The DPP 2008 is designed to boost India’s military capabilities by broadening the vendor base to encourage competition and ensure better reliability and quality assurance. Vendors will be required to give detailed reliability reports and be involved with long term maintenance of the equipment.
Vendors will also be given advanced information about likely procurement programmes.
The report is also designed to ease licensing conditions for private companies and improve communication between interested parties to increase transparency in platform and system field trials.
A technical oversight committee will be given an increased mandate to see whether trials have been conducted as per prescribed procedures.
The Indian Army, Air Forces and Navy have also been granted greater financial powers by allowing them to delegate spending up to INR500m ($11m). This is to expedite decision making and accelerate procurement initiatives.
By Daniel Garrun
